Recently, a letter appeared in the April/May issue of a magazine for people of “intelligence,” called Mensa Bulletin. The author of a letter to the editor, a Mr. Kmeco, claims to have read two versions of the Bible from cover to cover, although it does not show. When he found out that most Biblical scholars “considered Moses to be the author of the first five books of the Bible,” it dawned on him that the Bible was written by a man, not a Supreme Being (12). His first mistake is not distinguishing between Moses being the writer versus Moses being the author. Presumably, Mr. Kmeco started with Genesis on his excursions through Holy Writ. He should have noticed that the phrase, And God said, appears ten times in Genesis 1. Nowhere does it say, And Moses said.
Kmeco charges that Moses was merely a leader trying “to persuade his people not to return to Egypt.” Did he not notice the ten plagues that God brought upon Pharaoh and his people to get them out of Egypt in the first place? If Moses were merely a man without Divine guidance, how do we explain that Israel actually did conquer the land God had promised to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3)? How did slaves suddenly become so adept at fighting military battles— especially against some warriors who were giants? These things occurred through the power of God—not Moses.
Next is the charge that the Bible records some fantastic things, such as a talking serpent, “a Methuselah who lived more than 800 years” (actually it was 969; why the estimate when the exact figure is so easily obtainable?), parting the Red Sea, and “cramming two of every creature into a boat to survive a flood.” Kmeco may be ignorant of the fact that almost every culture on earth has a flood story in its history. Crammed? Does he have any idea that the ark was 1½ football fields long?
The most incredible statement appears in the following question: “Why do such fantastic miracles disappear from the Old Testament after Moses’s death?” Really? How does he think the walls of Jericho collapsed in Joshua 6? Did Kmeco overlook the sun standing still (Joshua 10:12-13)? How does he explain the battles that Israel won with few or zero casualties? Does he not recall Elijah’s contest with the false prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18)? Perhaps he dozed off a few times. (Incidentally, Abraham and Isaac had nothing to do with the burning bush.) Moses did not originate the events that he records in the first five books of the Bible any more than he composed the Ten Commandments. He was inspired of God and quoted as accurate by Jesus and the apostles.